Played better. Best football this year so far. Not a horrible draw even though we should have won. Benz/Vini/Rodrygo didn't have their shooting boots on today. Benz especially needs to improve his decisiveness....he's still only on second gear...been like that all January. Much improved performance by Rudiger and Camavinga....meaning our defence was good. We didn't get the result but this is encouraging and something we can build on. Barca's next 3 games: Betis away...Sevilla....then Villareal away. The league is very much alive. Hala Madrid. Again a great Camavinga and Ceballos.
I can only speak for myself but today we passed the eye test. For instance, Jr looked much better in part because defenders had a LB to mark. We had a lot of chances but their keeper was playing extremely well. Camavinga got beat a couple times in defense but the game was mostly in their half and Mendy would have been far worse on both sides of the ball.
Valverde and Benzema have been off for quite some time now. I really hope it’s something mental and they snap out of it soon.
Going to a 424 with Luka and Kroos in the middle ruined the game for us, lost all control and in the last 10 mins we couldn’t do anything. Poor from Carlo. But the points dropped isn’t on him, we have to score with all those chances. 5 points behind at the end of January is no big deal, just like we’d treat it as no big lead if we were top. But we need to start kicking into gear now especially with our attack.
Really don't know what game people bagging on Jr were watching, he wasn't the problem today. Some of you are trying too hard.
Fede was very good today, Vini improved with that support from Cama while his finishing was downright atrocious. Benz is a corpse. He should have been subbed out instead of Fede/Ceballos.
I’d say amateur finishing is a big problem. Benz isn’t himself but he also provided Vini with 3 chances on a platter. Vini without any end product isn’t much use to us.
Nevermind a legitimate penalty not awarded today and yesterday and what would the table look like then? The biggest issue right now is getting players healthy, getting guys Benz back in form and managing the minutes of Kroos and Modric better.
I agree there. Vini looked super energetic and had La Real's defense busy all night. That was mostly because Camavinga participated so well in attack, creating space for Vini. That LB position should be prioritized in the summer.
The goals keeper had some amazing saves, the last shot by Jr was very good not just technically but also because it was an adjustment by the player to not make the same error. I'm ok with that. And I also think a guy like that running at the defense only opens things up for the rest of the attack.
Benz especially, some posters are saying he’s had a bad time lately, he’s had a bad season. We need him to step it up for the rest of the season. I have a feeling as long as we’re close to Barca by the time we’re in the final stretch then we will close it out, our old boys will come alive when we start treating final stretch games like finals.
Our squad is really short. Hazard and Mariano are not even considered. Today just 2 substitutes. In a season like this, with so many games post WC, you can’t compete.
This is agree with. The squad lacks quality subs because those two are complete worthless. In a perfect world we could’ve shipped them both off and gotten once attacking sub who could actually be trusted to help out. Instead there they are, wasting space in the squad and money from the club. Frustrating. Getting our injured players back will help but we are short in attack and have been all season long. We failed to manage that situation well in my eyes.
He has to play full game after full game, 90 or 120 minutes. Zero rest, never subbed off and all that after so many injuries last year. He's 35 years old and has to play 99% of the possible minutes this season (when he's fit) just because we somehow can't sign a back-up striker.. https://t.co/YAlCbOigFz— MadridistaTV (@madridistatvYT) January 29, 2023
I'm going to give the optimistic approach: I think today was one of our best performances and complete games this season from minute 1 to 90. We looked better today than in many wins. We had the right intensity from the get-go. It's a big drop of points for the league table, but perhaps we will look back on this game as a turning point for the season. Vinicius and Rodrygo were a joy to watch. Carlo started Ceballos ahead of Modric. Camavinga once again did everything you can hope for while playing out of position. Reports suggest we will get Tchouameni, Alaba, and Carvajal back for the next game. We're going to get healthy again and the youngsters have proven themselves with the opportunities they've been given. Carlo has shown he rewards those that have delivered quality performances. I'm hopeful that we're going to see some high quality football in February and March when the biggest games come round.
Matches will be tough. Especially with Sociedad who is known to play defensive and hack at you. Which is why you can't take off Ceballos and Valverde then leave Kroos on. We had to grind to the last minute to get that goal and that move right there was akin to throwing in the towel. From that point on we were on the back foot and basically couldn't sustain anything. We need Kroos and others to start breaking up counters much more often when we should have been pressing to score. Kroos is a legend but he is dogshit slow. Not only running but moving the ball. We need quicker movement, quicker ball circulation and piercing wall breaking runs; all things you get from Ceballos and Valverde... NOT Kroos.
Bro, this was a superb game from us, there are a lot of positives that can be drawn from this game (no pun intended). But because of this performance I'm extra mad we couldn't score/win. I mean, how did this end 0-0? Vini has to put those 1v1 in the net, no two ways about it. One of those 3 chances goes in, it's 3 points done and dusted, good night. Carlo's brain-farts of subs in the 77th..would we have scored late? We're known to do so. But removing Ceballos/Fede butchered the momentum. Having Kroos-Modric on the pitch together automatically meant we dropped 2 points. Also, the writing has been on the wall re our forward line depth. It's scary thin.
League is gone. Don’t see Farca dropping many points in the second half of the season. We’re hanging on with fumes for Benz to score and he’s not going to recover anytime soon.
What makes it worse is Carlo doesn't learn. We have already taken off Ceballos and Camavinga to our detriment. We know how that ends. Yet this man will repeat the same shit expecting a different outcome because the name on their shirts rather than their performance on the pitch.
The lack of directness at times is really problematic; Jr and Rodrygo would benefit a lot if we let the game open up but I fear CA thinks that would expose the vulnerability of Kroos and Modric too much.
No way. The Catalans won't win all their games. Doesn't even happen in FIFA semi-pro mode. They'll drop points when we least expect them to and then there is the Clasico. The league is far from over. Agree on Benz, though it is be an unpopular stance here. We put all of our eggs in Benz's basket deluded that he'll repeat last year's miraculous form. He's human and he just doesn't have it in him. We failed to reinforce our front-line citing sh!t excuses and Carlo repeatedly refuses to use the Castilla even when he doesn't count on Mariano and Hazard.